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THE

SPECTATOR.

N° 170. Friday, September 14, 1711.

In amore hæc omnia infunt vitia : injuriæ,
Sufpiciones, inimicitiæ, induciæ,

Bellum, pax rurfum- TER. Eun. A&t. 1. Sc. r.

All these inconveniencies are incident to love: Reproaches, jealoufies, quarrels, reconcilements, war, and then peace.

UPON looking over the letters of my female cor

refpondents, I find several from women complaining of jealous hufbands, and at the fame time protesting their own innocence; and defiring my advice on this occafion. I fhall therefore take this fubject into my confideration; and the more willingly, becaufe I find that the marquis of Hallifax, who, in his Advice to a Daughter, has inftructed a wife how to behave herself towards a falfe, an intemperate, a choleric, a fullen, a covetous, or a filly husband, has not spoken one word of a jealous husband.

Jealoufy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehenfion that he is not equally beloved by the perfon whom he intirely loves. Now because our inward

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paffions and inclinations can never make themselves vifible, it is impoffible for a jealous man to be thoroughly cured of his fufpicions. His thoughts hang at beft in a ftate of doubtfulness and uncertainty; and are never capable of receiving any fatisfaction on the advantageous fide; fo that his inquiries are more fuccefsful when.. they discover nothing. His pleasure arifes from his difappointments, and his life is fpent in purfuit of a fecret that deftroys his happiness if he chance to find it.

An ardent love is always a ftrong ingredient in this paffion; for the fame affection which ftirs up the jealous man's defires, and gives the party beloved fo beautiful a figure in his imagination, makes him believe fhe kindles the fame paffion in others, and appears as amiable to all beholders. And as jealoufy thus arifes from an extraordinary love, it is of fo delicate a nature, that it scorns to take up with any thing less than an equal return of love. Not the warmest expreffions of affection, the fofteft and moit tender hypocrify, are able to give any fatisfaction, where we are not perfuaded that the affection is real, and the fatisfaction mutual. For the jealous man wifhes himfelf a kind of deity to the perfon he loves: he would be the only pleasure of her fenfes, the employment of her thoughts; and is angry at every thing the admires, or takes delight in befides bimfelf.

Phædria's request to his mistress upon his leaving her for three days, is inimitably beautiful and natural.

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Cum milite ifto præfens, abfens ut fies:
Dies nocefque me ames: me defideres :
Me fomnies: me expecles: de me cogites:
Mefperes me te oblectes: mecum tota fis:
Meus fac fis poftremò animus, quando ego fum tuus.

TER, Eun. Act. 1. Sc. 2.

When you are in company with that foldier, behave as if you were abfent: but continue to love me by day and by night want me; dream of me; expect me; think of me; wifh for me; delight in me: be wholly with me in short, be my very foul, as I am yours.' The jealous man's disease is of fo malignant a nature, that it converts all he takes into its own nourishment.

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A cool behaviour fets him on the rack, and is interpreted as an inftance of averfion or indifference; a ford one raifes his fufpicions, and looks too much like diffimulation and artifice. If the perfon he loves be chearful, her thoughts must be employed on another; and if fad, fhe is certainly thinking on himfelf. In fhort, there is no word or gefture fo infignificant, but it gives him new hints, feeds his fufpicions, and furnishes him with fresh matters of discovery: fo that if we confider the effects of this paffion, one would rather think it proceeded from an inveterate hatred, than an exceffive love; for certainly none can meet with more difquietude and uneafinefs than a fuspected wife, if we except: the jealous husband.

But the great unhappiness of this paffion is, that it naturally tends to alienate the affection which it is fo folicitous to ingrofs; and that for these two reafons, becaufe it lays too great a constraint on the words and actions of the fufpected perfon, and at the fame time fhews you have no honourable opinion of her; both of which are strong motives to averfion.

Nor is this the worst effect of jealoufy; for it often draws after it a more fatal train of confequences, and makes the perfon you fufpect guilty of the very crimes you are fo much afraid of. It is very natural for fuch who are treated ill and upbraided falfely, to find out an intimate friend that will hear their complaints, condole their fufferings, and endeavour to footh and affuage: their fecret refentments. Befides, jealoufy puts a woman often in mind of an ill thing that fhe would not: otherwife perhaps have thought of, and fills her imagination with fuch an unlucky idea, as in time grows familiar,. excites defire, and lofes all the fhame and horror which might at first attend it. Nor is it a wonder if the who fuffers wrongfully in a man's opinion of her, and has therefore nothing to forfeit in his efteem, refolves to give him reafon for his fufpicions, and to enjoy the pleasure of the crime, fince fhe muft undergo the igno-miny. Such probably were the confiderations that directed the wife man in his advice to hufbands; 'Be not jealous over the wife of thy bofom, and teach her not an evil leffon against thyfelf.' Ecclus. As

And here, among the other torments which this pasfion produces, we may usually observe that none are greater mourners than jealous men, when the perfon who provoked their jealoufy is taken from them. Then it is that their love breaks out furiously, and throws off all the mixtures of fufpicion which choaked and fmothered it before. The beautiful parts of the character rife uppermost in the jealous husband's memory, and upbraid him with the ill ufage of fo divine a creature as was once in his poffeffion; whilft all the little imperfections, that were before fo uneafy to him, wear off from his remembrance, and fhew themselves no more.

We may fee by what has been faid, that jealousy takes the deepeft root in men of amorous difpofitions; and of these we may find three kinds who are most over-run with it.

The firft are thofe who are conscious to themselves of any infirmity, whether it be weakness, old age, deformity, ignorance, or the like. Thefe men are fo well acquainted with the unamiable part of themselves, that they have not the confidence to think they are really beloved; and are fo diftruftful of their own merits, that all fondness towards them puts them out of countenance, and looks like a jeft upon their perfons. They grow fufpicious on their firft looking in a glafs, and are ftung with jealoufy at the fight of a wrinkle. A handfome fellow immediately alarms them, and every thing that looks young or gay turns their thoughts upon their wives.

A fecond fort of men, who are most liable to this paffion, are thofe of cunning, wary, and diftrustful tempers. It is a fault very juftly found in hiftories compofed by politicians, that they leave nothing to chance or humour, but are still for deriving every action from fome plot or contrivance, for drawing up a perpetual fcheme of caufes and events, and preferving a conftant correfpondence between the camp and the council table. And thus it happens in the affairs of love with men of too refined a thought. They put a conftruction on a look, and find out a defign in a fmile; they give new fenfes and fignifications to words and actions ; and are ever tormenting themselves with fancies of

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